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    Joined: Sep 2013
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    On another forum I visit (not related to gifted topics), there's a thread about gifted children and schooling. Someone recently posted that "most researchers" agree that true giftedness can't be identified until third grade... I'm really wondering about that claim. Anyone have information supporting or denying it?

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    Since there isn't really one definition of "true giftedness," I would immediately question the validity of that statement.

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    Originally Posted by George C
    Since there isn't really one definition of "true giftedness," I would immediately question the validity of that statement.


    Agreed! It just drives me bonkers when people go spouting that sort of thing off.

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    Here's a related official example from our district:

    http://www.seattleschools.org/UserF...ssionid=387f1c9b56ba0467eec5adaf9a4e1c92

    (I'm not endorsing any of the viewpoints above)

    Dr Hertzog is a professor at the University of Washington. There's no research data for any of her points in this presentation but maybe it can serve as a starting point if your looking for more info.

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    While I agree there isn't really one definition of "true giftedness", the poster on the other forum may have been trying to convey "gifted" as distinguished from "hothoused" or "tiger-parented".

    It is my understanding that research studies on "IQ stability" inform the view that some hold about gifted identification in 3rd grade (typically 8-9 years old in US public schools).

    There are other threads on this forum which question the related saying that children "even out" by third grade (an idea debunked in this explanatory article by Carol Bainbridge for About.com)

    In some cases, precocious children with especially large vocabularies and stilted form of expression may be diagnosed with ASD and/or given a 2e label when testing is conducted at this age.

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    Ah, the generic appeal to "research" without any supporting references. Gotta love rigorous arguments. wink

    People should at least have the decency to name a school of thought, institute, or researcher behind the claim. If not, it is likely opinion masquerading as "evidence".


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    My layperson's understanding is that IQ stabilizes at 8 or 9 - so it may be more convenient or economical for a school district to screen at that age.

    That said my son was ID'd at age 3. I was skeptical but we have gone ahead with a program for gifted kids. He is very happy and socially well adjusted. Waiting till age 8 would have been very harmful for us.

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    I was told by my local school district that the appropriate age for giftedness testing were between the ages of seven and nine years old - which is the age at which the results would be "reliable". If there were no other concerns, they wait until kids are 8 years old in the 3rd grade to test. For a lot of kids with none to low exposure to reading and language, it is true that testing might be better after a few years of schooling.

    In our case, we tested earlier privately because we did not want to wait for the system to work for our child.

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    I think the issue is similar to the reason that oftentimes students with LDs aren't identified until 2nd-3rd grade: there is a huge spectrum of developmental timeframes in young children. Some children learn to read early, some children (even some pg children) don't begin reading until they are 6 years old. Third grade is a typical point at which the impact of differing developmental milestones no longer will hide LDs or giftedness, and similarly it's a point at which achievement differences will start to be less present in situations such as a child who perhaps learned to read or do math early or was given the advantage of early preschool exposure to concepts that perhaps another child didn't have. On the flip side, it's sometimes difficult to know if the reason a student is struggling with reading or whatever because of an LD or just because they aren't developmentally ready yet until 2nd or 3rd grade.

    Re giftedness, from my limited sample of kids I've known - you could see intellectual giftedness at a young age - through conversation and the thoughts that the children shared. It didn't necessarily show up in the type of academic skill sets that schools are focused on (although it did sometimes).

    The other thing that is perhaps perceived to be beneficial from a school's standpoint in evaluating students is that by 3rd grade, most students will have a bit of past history of teachers who know them and have worked with them. In early elementary, there are often parents clamoring to get their children id'd as gifted, whether the child is or isn't truly gifted.

    Those are just my ponderings...

    polarbear

    Last edited by polarbear; 10/08/15 11:58 AM.
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    When people do cite research about this, they point to longitudinal studies showing that IQ results varies by [insert points here, usually up to twenty or thirty] in a certain quotient [insert something like a third] of the population tested at various points in childhood.

    However, even if very few children show as much variation as 20 or 30 points (note the "up to"), a lot of children may show smaller variations. As we all know, up to ten points or so more or less in scored by a child isn't even that significant: could be a bad day, bad rapport with the tester, variations in testing emphasis, an intellectual growth spurt or plateau...stuff that does get rarer after third grade, simply because kids have been exposed to a lot of testing situations until then. And as pointed out by polar bear, if academic achievement is taken into account, variation in exposure to academics evens out as children progress through grade school.

    But as most kids identified as gifted (if we go with the usually accepted definition of scoring over 130 on a recognised IQ test, for whatever it's worth) will score closely above the 130 threshold, where 10 points more or less on two different occasions can make all the difference in a gifted/not gifted dichotomy, a very large proportion of kids is affected by even very small variations in the results, even though the variation meh not have any real significance. Which then gets generalized, by educators, to sayings such as the above.

    This is a statistical phenomenon that rarely applies to the HG+ kids represented on this board, simply because even larger variations in iQ scores do not affect "gifted status" as long as the score does not drop below 130...however, once educators have accepted a generalization, good luck trying to explain distinctions.

    Last edited by Tigerle; 10/08/15 12:15 PM.
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